This invention relates to an apparatus for disintegrating baled crop materials.
Crop materials such as hay and other forage materials or straw are often baled for storage and transportation. In some cases when it is necessary for the baled material to be utilized, it is necessary for the baled material to be disintegrated from the bale structure for breaking into a row of feed material, dispensing into feed bunks or in some cases for spreading such as for bedding or the like.
One machine that is currently available for this process is manufactured by Haybuster of North Dakota and is shown in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,672.
This device includes a flail drum mounted at the base of a cradle. Inclined bars extend from a position to one side of the flail drum upwardly and toward the opposed side so as to define a grate against which a bale can be pressed for engagement with the rotating flails of the flail drum. The bale is moved into engagement with the grate and therefore with the flail drum by a belt conveyor which extends from the base of the grate outwardly toward the side of the flail drum and thus provides a substantially horizontal platform on which the bale is resting by gravity. Rotation of the belt thus drives the bale toward the grate. A support surface is positioned on the opposed side from the belt for engaging a side surface of the bale as it is driven toward the grate. The belt, the grate and the side surface thus form a cradle within which the bail is intended to rotate, thus causing the periphery of the bale to move past the flail drum.
The machine of Haybuster is designed specifically for use with the widely used large cylindrical bale and is not designed for other types of bales such as the small rectangular bale or the large rectangular bale, both of which are used by some farmers.
Bales when initially formed, are properly cylindrical and thus it is relatively easy to rotate the bale about its axis by the simple action of the belt against the underside of the bale.
However, when a bale has been stored for an extended period, particularly in winter, the bale can become flat on one side and in addition the bale can become deeply frozen, particularly at the flat side in engagement with the ground. The bale therefore becomes much more difficult to rotate and can become jammed in the Haybuster machine so that no further rotation of the bale occurs, thus halting the action of the flail drum against the bale until the rotation can be restarted. It is known, therefore, that the Haybuster machine can fail to disintegrate some bales which are of the type which are particularly deformed due to the storage condition.
Furthermore, the Haybuster machine has some difficulty in handling loose materials since the belt provides insufficient force to push the loose materials into the flail drum. Cylindrical bales are formed in two different types, one of which is the hard core type which is carefully rolled throughout its formation to ensure a proper rolling action at the center of the bale, thus providing a relatively high density throughout the bale. These bales can generally be rotated as they are disintegrated since there is sufficient density and mass in the final portion of the bale to allow it to be continued in its rotation. A second type of bale, however, is of the soft center type in which there is little rolling action on the center part of the bale so that it forms simply a mass or pile of the crop material with the outer materials being rolled around the inner core. Bales of this type are much more difficult to disintegrate since once the outer layers have gone there is remaining simply a pile of soft crop material which has insufficient mass to force it into the flail drum.
It is one object of the present invention, therefore, to provide an apparatus for disintegrating baled crop materials which provides an improved or more aggressive disintegration action.
According to the first aspect of the invention there is provided an apparatus for disintegrating baled crop materials comprising a hopper for receiving and containing the baled crop materials, the hopper having two side walls which converge downwardly and inwardly toward a base portion extending along a longitudinal direction of the hopper, a disintegration member mounted in the hopper at the base portion for rotation about an axis longitudinal of the hopper and carrying a plurality of radially extending crop material grasping members for engaging and grasping the crop material as the disintegration member rotates, an exit in the hopper at the base portion arranged longitudinally of the disintegration member for expulsion of the grasped crop material from the hopper, and two support members for the baled crop material, each mounted in the hopper and extending generally longitudinally of the hopper, and each mounted so as to have a support surface thereof raised from the disintegration member and on a respective side thereof so as to define an opening between the support members through which the baled crop material can be presented to the disintegration member for engagement therewith, each support member defining said support surface which is rotatable about an axis longitudinal of the hopper whereby the baled crop material can be rotated within the hopper to pass across said opening for engagement of different parts of the baled crop material with the disintegration member.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus for disintegrating baled crop materials comprising a hopper for receiving and containing the baled crop materials, the hopper having two side walls which converge downwardly and inwardly toward a base portion extending along a longitudinal direction of the hopper, a disintegration member mounted in the hopper at the base portion for rotation about an axis longitudinal of the hopper and carrying a plurality of radially extending crop material grasping members for engaging and grasping the crop material as the disintegration member rotates, an exit in the hopper at the base portion arranged longitudinally of the disintegration member for expulsion of the grasped crop material from the hopper, the disintegration member comprising a substantially cylindrical drum having a plurality of pivot pins thereon each having a pivot axis longitudinal of the drum and a plurality of flails, each flail including an end portion engaging a respective one of the pivot pins for pivotal movement about the axis of the pivot pin and an outer portion for engaging the baled crop material, each flail including a blade portion lying in a plane generally longitudinal of the drum with the outer portion being curved from the blade portion forwardly of the direction of rotation of the drum to form a tooth section for engaging into the baled crop material, the blade portion extending to a position on the pivot pin rearwardly of the pivot axis of the pivot pin so that centrifugal force tends to incline the blade portion forwardly from the position rearwardly of the pivot axis to the tooth portion forwardly of the pivot axis to maintain the tooth portion in an aggressive cutting mode.
One embodiment of the invention will now be described in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which: